Many of my Christian friends believe in the eternity of hell. One friend wrote the following comment on a thread:

"Yet it is these very teachings (of Jesus) which condemn all non-Christians to an eternity in hell.."

Yeh that's where fear comes in that "eternity in hell".....

Some how when the Lord Jesus taught though everyone was "non-Christian" ... When you consider that the term "Christian" wasn't even used when Jesus was alive it could raise some questions:

11:25 Then departed Barnabas to Tarsus, for to seek Saul: 11:26 And when he had found him, he brought him unto Antioch. And it came to pass, that a whole year they assembled themselves with the church, and taught much people. And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.
(King James Bible, Acts)

and so how many varieties are there of those who call themselves Christian?
One place says:

According to the World Christian Encyclopedia (year 2000 version), global Christianity had 33,820 denominations with 3,445,000 congregations/churches composed of 1,888 million affiliated Christians.

another place has:

This is not a complete list, but aims to provide a comprehensible overview of the diversity among denominations of Christianity. As there are reported to be over 38,000 Christian denominations..

And now do all these 38,000 plus denominations which represent the true Christianity we could ask... I wonder...

With over 38,000 choices for a non-Christian to choose from to avoid eternal hell it really is a stretch ...

What about the belief in "eternity in hell" among Christians..?

The Eastern Orthodox pray for the dead, and they believe that sometimes a lost soul can be saved after death through the prayers of the living..

Some Protestants (such as George MacDonald, Karl Barth, Keith DeRose and Thomas Talbott), also, however, in a minority, believe that after serving their sentence in Gehenna, all souls are reconciled to God and admitted to heaven, or ways are found at the time of death of drawing all souls to repentance so that no "hellish" suffering is experienced...

Seventh-day Adventists do not believe the wicked will suffer for eternity in hell, but instead teach conditional immortality.

The early Christian theologian Origen of Alexandria who lived about 185-254 CE reasoned:

Origen was unable to conceive of a God who would create souls that were capable of dissolving into the oblivion of evil (non-being) for all eternity. Therefore, he reasoned that a single lifetime is not enough for a soul to achieve salvation, for certain souls require more education or 'healing' than others. So he developed his doctrine of multiple ages, in which souls would be re-born, to experience the educative powers of God once again, with a view to ultimate salvation...

"...everlasting punishment meant that someone was capable of thwarting the will of God forever, since it was the divine will that all be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Tim. 2:4; Princ. 3.6.5). As long as hell remained, all were not redeemed and God's will was frustrated."

I don't know... I think there's room for doubt... Being non-Christian and a Baha'i can be redemptive I think.

Baha'i Faith

The Bahá'í Faith is a religion founded by Bahá'u'lláh in 19th-century Persia, emphasizing the spiritual unity of all humankind. There are about six million Bahá'ís in more than 200 countries and territories around the world.